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Aristotle, Nursing and Health Care Ethics

Author

Scott, P. Anne

Bibliographic Citation

Nursing Ethics. 1995 Dec; 2(4): 279-285.

Abstract

Even a brief consideration of the nature of nursing will indicate
that an ethical dimension underlies much, if not all, of nursing practice. It
is therefore important that students and practitioners are facilitated in
developing an ethical awareness and sensitivity from early in their
professional development. This paper argues that Aristotelian virtue theory
provides a practice-based focus for health care ethics for a number of
reasons. Also, because of his emphasis on the character of the moral agent,
and on the importance of perception and emotion in moral decision-making,
Aristotelian virtue theory provides a useful supplement to the traditional
duty-based approaches to health care ethics analysis, which are increasingly
being identified in the literature as having limits to their application
within the health care context.

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